A stream of fourth-graders poured into the library at Burnt Bridge Creek Elementary like water spreading into the nooks and crannies of a large — yet highly educational — reservoir.
The library, during what’s called Makerspace time, is filled with project stations that let students experiment with kid-friendly snap circuit boards, program small robots and build complex items out of Popsicle sticks and clothespins. As the fourth-graders arrive, they pick their favorite stations, partner up and are almost instantly engaged.
“We’re making a game,” said Makayla Lawrence, 10, who beelined it for the circuit boards with her friend, Yana Dirienko, also 10. “We’ve never made a game with these before. This is my favorite class. It’s like making something with Legos, but it does more.”
The pair were working on a circuit board that changes sounds when light is used on a photosensitive component. Yana previously made a circuit board sound like firefighters going to the rescue, and she was eager to experiment more.
“I like to make something with sounds,” she said. “You can put a sign with some of these in them and it will make sounds.”
The Burnt Bridge Creek Elementary Makerspace is the brainchild of librarian Kari Oosterveen, who has been slowly building the concept from an idea into a reality over the past four years. The goal is to help kids understand more of the complex technical workings of the world while still having fun. And it works a bit like the long-lost shop class — kids also have access to woodworking outside — but Oosterveen has put the concept together with pretty much no money from the school system.
“I come from a teaching background, and when I had my own class, I always had a Makerspace with volunteers,” Oosterveen said. “But when I got here, I had a lot of space and I thought, well, I’ll start small and grow it.”
Over the first three years working on the project, she collected materials, brainstormed concepts and personally bought several sets of snap circuit board kits for the kids. But when volunteer Luke Loeffler showed up last year, she finally had the manpower to launch Makerspace class time for her school’s fourth- and fifth-graders.
“Luke came as a storyteller, which evolved into him working with me on technology and other STEM things,” Oosterveen said. “We need people to volunteer, because the kids need more than one set of adults to listen to.”
Loeffler, who lives in the neighborhood but doesn’t have kids, said he loves coming into the school like a cool uncle, teaching the kids whatever neat technological tidbits he’s learned. He has a triple-set of the kids’ circuit boards that he plays with at home, coming up with creative projects for them.
“This is not just computers, math, technology — we’d love a lot more volunteers,” Loeffler said. “The idea is to get kids involved and interested. If there’s a contractor around here and he has a free hour, just one hour, he could come in and teach the kids how a circuit works, or how solder works. We’d love to have a lot of volunteers like that.”
Andre Casillas, who teaches fifth grade at the school, volunteers his personal time after hours to run a woodworking class as part of the Makerspace with kids. Woodworking is his hobby, but he likes to share it and the kids have been enthusiastic, he said.
“I wanted to use the skills I know, and the head of my homeowners association actually donated $500 for us to get materials and supplies to do it,” Casillas said. “We’ve been doing that for two months and we have kids cycling through.”
As part of the process, kids made projects for a school auction, including an American flag, Seahawks emblem and other artistic designs that they sold for more funding.
“The kids made things for the school auction, but they wanted to stay on and keep doing it, so now they’re making things for themselves and their families,” Casillas said. “They want even more. I actually have a waiting list of kids now.”
Loeffler also recently learned how to use 3D printing software through the Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries, and he’s teaching it to students in the school’s fifth grade, who see the class as a reward for good behavior.
“I love it,” said Jada Lockett, an 11-year-old fifth-grader who participated in Loeffler’s 3D printing class. “I get a lot out of it.”
In the 3D printing class, kids sat around computers and desks learning how to map out a design on a graph, slowly building up items pixel by pixel. The end goal is to print out keychains or other items when Evergreen Public School’s 3D printer comes to the class in a few weeks.
“I like how it’s creative, and you can make stuff and do stuff you’ve never done before,” said Janessa Doering, 11, as she tinkered with her design.
Zury Barrera, 11, said she had a little bit of an edge because her aunt is an engineer.
“This is a little bit like engineering and my aunt does that so it’s really cool to do a little bit here, and then a little bit at home with her,” Zury said. “She’s teaching me some things, mostly what I can understand.”
She added that she’s thinking about following in her aunt’s footstep and becoming an engineer when she grows up.
And the kids like the classes so much that teachers use them as a reward for being good, being respectful and getting assignments done.
“This is a fun thing so we have to earn it,” Jessica Doering said.
Lilly Daniels, a 10-year-old fifth-grader, said she enjoys learning how to build things. She wants to follow in her dad’s footsteps as an electrician.
“I like helping him,” Lilly said. “We have a hot tub we’re fixing, and I like handing him his tools.”
The processes and skills students learn in the classes will help them succeed later in life — whether that’s the math skills they’ve learned on the computer helping them with academia or the soft skills they learn from managing their behavior in order to participate — not to mention the creative benefits.
“The creative process is really empowering for kids,” Casillas said. “When they can envision something and do it all the way to the end, that builds confidence. There’s problem-solving, logic, discipline. They learn so many things that are empowering for the rest of their lives.”
Eventually Oosterveen would like to add more workstations to the library Makerspace, but to do that she needs more donations and volunteers, she said.
“I was thinking of adding a wood station, a station where kids can work with pipes, maybe even a fixer station where they can bring in broken toasters or other appliances,” Oosterveen said. “We just really need more volunteers.”
Beyond volunteers, she’d also love contribution from local businesses that have extra materials — even nuts and bolts or scrap wood laying around — that the kids can experiment with.
“We have the space, we just need the people to help,” Oosterveen said.
